5a. Lake Hume, Dairy Farm, Horses

Today turned out to be one the fullest days of the entire trip; so many things done and seen, so much so that I have divided the day into two parts for these postings. The first part (5a) begins with the morning excursion with my kind and generous host, who took me via Lake Hume, to see the old town of Tallangatta that was moved due to the creation of Lake Hume and the Hume Weir, then to a Dairy Farm in which one of his grand-daughters is like a modern day Milk Maid. This was an brilliant experience in itself – watching the cows being milked with modern equipment, but the best was yet to be – a visit to the paddock that holds the family’s Horses, with four young foals to add to the sheer wonder and joy of this very country experience.

The old town of Tallangatta, which was a major centre for the region in regard to Gold Mining and Dairy production was first established in 1870-71. Due to expansion of Lake Hume in the mid-1950s the old town was was moved 8 kilometres to the west where it now sits. Whilst the remnants of its heady Gold Rush days are barely visible, nonetheless, the new town, like the old town, is a centre for Dairy production. My host took me to a lookout overseeing the place where the old town existed. You can clearly see in the grass the street plan and layout of the old town.

The next part of the morning excursion was a visit to a local Dairy Farm, which produces top quality A2 milk for the Devondale company. I am calling the following series of photos The Milk Maids in honour of the two young women who generously and openly gave their valuable time and expert advice to enlighten me in regard to the modern day production of milk at the beginning of the entire process. The cows are milked twice a day, morning and late afternoon – sounds pretty easy – except that there happens to be over 650 cows, a mixture of Jersey and Friesian cows that produce milk of the highest quality.

To successfully milk the cows each day the dairy uses an elaborate and quite extraordinary piece of modern machinery; a large rotating dial with individual stalls that the cows enter and stand and eat whilst suction valves are applied to their udders, the valves automatically dropping off once the individual cow has been milked.

It is quite an impressive operation done by just two highly efficient and friendly modern-day Milk Maids, one of which is my hosts’ grand-daughter – the one with the degree in Animal Science and startling information about how to hide dead bodies in horses – she is fantastic and smart – she knows all about each of the 650-odd cows and more. Good thing too as she knows which cows are currently not to be milked due to suspected illness and/or age, and subsequently not producing the desired A2 milk. Nonetheless, they enter the milking dial with all the others, take up a position and begin to eat – but the Milk Maid do not put the suction valves on these few ‘suspect’ cows. It really is only a few; that leaves the vast majority of the 650-odd cows to be individually milked under the supervision of the Milk Maids.

Each cow has a number, with a tag through one of their ears; they also have painted stripes on their butt, red, green, white, or orange, which also helps identify each cow’s particular position, including whether or not they are pregnant.

They do about 50 cows at a time, and the whole process is done,with one circuit of the dial in about 15 minutes. I had never seen this process up close and it was fascinating – as well as a bit humbling in that we who live in the cities take for advantage the amount of effort that goes into producing 1 litre of milk that we buy in our local supermarkets.

It is not the easiest of jobs – the hours are long and the work is arduous – and smelly; I mean these cows eat and get milked and still shit at the drop of a hat, which then has to washed out.

There is a lot of fluids flowing – water, milk, urine, more water and it goes on and on until the entire herd are done. This whole process is then repeated again in the late-afternoon.

Whilst still on the Dairy Farm we went from the milk production line to visit the young calves who were nearby, as was one of the ‘special’ cows of this farm who was in a neighbouring paddock – a young cow who was born with only three legs. We were told that they were probably going to have it put down but the cow had managed to survive its infancy and whilst awkward, nonetheless it was quite capable of moving around and grazing on three legs – as we observed.

It was feeding Time at ‘Calf Central’,at which we met the New Zealand owners, a husband and wife team, of the Dairy Farm. The calves were gorgeous and cute but when ballistic when fed – a drinking frenzy.

There was one sick calf nearby, lying down just outside the feeding frenzy pen, and was being attended to by the dairy owners. They tried to get the calf to stand, but unfortunately to no avail.

From the Dairy we then drove further into the hinterland – my generous host pointing out certain features and properties as we drove. He drew my attention to one house sitting on top of one of the numerous hills. I was told that the house actually looks out over the other side of the hill; a stunning view of the 140 acre property. I was also politely informed that the previous owners was a ‘gay boy’, with a partner who had died recently. My host told me that he and his wife had often taken their caravan and stayed on the property, keeping an eye on it when the owner was away. My host was very complimentary of the owner, and then stated that the house was full of ‘gayisms’. It wasn’t said in a negative homophobic way, it was affectionate and highly amusing; but I didn’t respond, even though my imagination ran riot with what these ‘gayisms’ may have been – movie posters? Westerns? Dolly Parton? Maybe a poster Nicholas Roeg’s movie masterpiece Johnny Guitar (1954) starring Joan Crawford??? There wasn’t time to go and see this place, but it did bring up two things that were to resurface every now and then during the rest of the trip. First, my continued dream to find a place where I can hold events, such as the ‘Movie and Meal’ idea where a select group of people come to a place where they are to have a meal and watch a movie; the meal would come from this particular movie, which would also have a talk from me (or some other) about the movie – and then they watch the film in an open-air deckchair cinema under the stars. Dreams. Second – ‘gayisms‘; this was to come up again later that afternoon when we went to Yackandandah – with great hilarity.

Just past the ‘gayism’ property we came to the entrance to a farm with two large paddocks on either side of the drive up to the house. The paddocks were surrounded by hills that looked like mountains in the distance. We had come here to see the horses that were owned by the extended family members of our host and hostess. There were a number of beautiful looking horses, including four foals. We first went to the paddock on the left that had the mares and foals.When I first saw the horses that we had come to see I suddenly thought of the opening scene of The Sound of Music – only this time there was no sound; it was all very quiet, majestic and wonderful.

I was completely bold-over by the horses. They were so – unafraid. The four foals were inquisitive and friendly, my host having a great affinity and gentleness to which the foals readily responded.

We then crossed over to the other paddock which primarily contained the stallions and bigger horses. My host called his horse – ‘Blackie’ – who came with the others without any coaxing; the name being rather appropriate considering the dark lustre that shone from the horses hide – beautiful. I must admit, however, to feeling just a little bit anxious when I was suddenly surrounded by a number of very tall and powerful horses. Like the foals, they were also inquisitive and gently started to nibble my clothing. My host kept gently reprimanded them to ‘Don’t bite’, which the horses basically ignored, further exacerbating my concerns. Don’t get me wrong – I love horses – but these ones, the stallions, were rather big and a little intimidating and scary. However, this pack was controlled by ‘Blackie’ who would brook no nonsense – or competition – and quickly shooed the others away when they pressed too close – wanting some of the carrots that my host had bought with him.

The horses were owned primarily by my host and three other members of the family, including the Milk Maid with the degree in Animal Science. It was very clear that they all had a great affinity with horses, something that is perhaps lacking in a city boy’s make-up, living in an environment of cars, buses, taxis, trains, planes and ferries.This, however, was the Australian countryside in which the horse is still a major player in people’s lives. Furthermore, this family had chosen well in regard to the horses that they owned, partly due to gained knowledge either through university and/or experience in such things as ‘endurance’ races. The horses came from good stock, and the family had the potential to make considerable earnings and profits in another five years due to their careful and clever selection of horses to buy and rear – and love. It was very clear to me from how the horses responded to my host that this particular group from my brother-in-law’s Wodonga family loved their horses. Wonderful.

As we were leaving to drive back to Wodonga my host draw my attention to the sign that was fixed onto a tree at the entrance to the property.

The sign states,‘DEE”S PLACE – Trespasses will be Shot! Survivors will Shot Again!’ The dark ‘gallows humour’ of this so-called welcoming sign at the entrance to the property did make me laugh, and yet at the same time kind of confirming the distinctive darkness in attitude towards strangers and other outsiders, essentially as a kind of threat, which seems is another common characteristic in this region of the Australian countryside. Maybe it is a common characteristic for the entire country? The blunt dry sardonic humour exemplified by this ‘welcoming’ (or rather ‘warning’) sign.

This was such a fantastic way to conclude our morning excursion; in fact, it was one of the main highlights of the entire trip, particularly the enchanting beauty of the foals, and everything being set against a most spectacular background of the Australian countryside.

At a much later point when I was talking about the horses to the 17 year old grand-son, currently doing his apprenticeship as a ‘farrier’ and becoming a ‘blacksmith’, that I recalled the poem The Horses by Edwin Muir (1887-1959), one of my favourite poems of the twentieth century. This poem in a way encapsulates so much about the unique, mysterious and ages-old relationship between horses and man. Subsequently, It seems appropriate to finish this first part of the day by posting Edwin Muir’s beautiful poem.

THE HORSES by Edwin Muir

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
‘They’ll molder away and be like other loam.’
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers’ land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers’ time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

DAY 4: WODONGA – Saturday 26 December – Boxing Day

Boxing Day in Australia is usually a time to just sit and recover from the meal gorge of the previous day, watching either the cricket and/or the start of the annual Sydney-Hobart Yatch Race. This year was no different – and I sat and watched the beginning of the race with my host.Later in the day there more drop-in visits from family and friends – all terrific. Not many pics for today – but a few.

DAY 3: WODONGA – Friday 25 December – Xmas Day

Xmas Day was essentially a private family affair – so pics. There were 16 of us for Xmas lunch, most from my brother-in-law’s and his sister’s side of the family, with grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews – and me. It was terrific fun – so much laughter – and stories.

So – the answer to the first ‘death & murder’ challenge is (courtesy of one of my brother-in-law’s relatives who happens to have an animal science degree, and currently works in a dairy more on that later). One of the best ways of concealing a dead body is to cut open a dead horse and put the human body inside and then bury it. My sister and I had our jaws on the floor when that particular ghoulish piece of country mayhem was told. Shocked – and then gales of giggling. Naughty – but funny.

That night was a full-moon, and whilst cloudy it didn’t fail to disappoint and was stunning – and in a way complimentary to the macabre country stories were had heard that day and night.

DAY 2: WODONGA – Thursday 24 December, 2015

A very lazy day that actually began with a rain storm, which was lovely to hear from the cozy comfort of my caravan bed. Today was primarily spent preparing for tomorrow – buying last minute Xmas presents and other items in Wodonga. It also marked the beginning of sitting down to some wonderful family meals, with the knowledge that during the next couple of days I was going to eat a lot of food – and I mean A LOT!

Late afternoon I went for a walk around the local area with my nephew, brother-in-law, his sister, and her gorgeous Alsatian whose coat was a like a mane with brown and orange stripes – a cross between a tiger and a wolf, yet despite the impressive appearance had the most wonderful gentle personality. Such a great dog – who would make the others wait for me when I dropped behind taking photos.

This was a truly terrific walk, taking in the Australian countryside, sunset with extraordinary changes in colour, and lots of kangaroos bouncing around. Hope you enjoy the following….

Oh – answers to the two questions posed in the previous post will be given in the next post.

It wasn’t a full-moon that night – but nearly. The full-moon would be for Xmas Day, the first in 38 years. Christmas Eve, however, was a clear and beautiful nighht

XMAS 2015 was always going to be an exceptional. This was because it would be the first Xmas my immediate family would not be spending a Xmas in hometown Sydney, and it would be my first Xmas ever in the Australian rural countryside. I had been invited to join my brother-in-law and sister, and nephew, at his sister’s and her husbands home in Victoria state town of Wodonga for Xmas. The first time we were to spend a Xmas with my brother-in-law’s family – a well overdue event considering the 42 years strong and still going relationship between my sister and my brother-in-law. We were all looking forward to it very much – and we were not to be disappointed as it turned out to be one to the best Xmas I have ever had – in such a great place, with such wonderful people.

The following is the first of six entries of my Xmas 2015 Travel Journal. We did numerous things over the six day holiday period, from 23-29 December 2015, but I need to put in the following disclaimer – as you will not see everything. I do not put up photos of my my family, unless their faces cannot be recognized. This is in respect for their privacy. as well as their patience for my photography obsessions. So – you will not be seeing many actual Xmas family dinners and lunches etc, of which their were many – and all great fun! What you will see, however, is numerous environmental photos, of landscapes, historical places, working places including a dairy farm, galleries, museums, and old towns that collectively represent and give a small glimpse of a fascinating region of rural Australia, one that is profoundly connected to the Murray River and Valley, and the Gold-Rush the 1850s, and the story of Ned Kelly. I hope you enjoy it and be inspired to explore this region of Australia.

DAY 1: ADELAIDE to WODONGA – Wednesday 23 December, 2015.

We left Adelaide very early in the morning of December 23, beginning the approximately nine hours drive to Albury-Wodonga. We travelled virtually directly east until we came to the Murray River and the old historic Victorian towns of Swan Hill and Echuca.

We headed along to Murray Valley Highway towards Swan Hill, enthralled and amazed at the majestic breadth of the Australian rural countryside. However, before we got to Swan Hill we were compelled by a desire that was to repeat itself a few times on this trip – the need to have a picture of one of the numerous and infamous ‘Giant Statues’ that characterize places all over Australia, primarily on the main highways – our first was the giant statue Giant Murray River Cod.

Swan Hillis a small town at the junction of the Loddon and Murray Rivers. The site was named Swan Hill by the explorer Thomas Mitchell in 1836, due his observation of numerous swans and other water birds that flocked around the junction of the two rivers. There is evidence, however, that the place was inhabited by indigenous Australians 13,000 years ago. It is still the home of the Werri-Werri people, whose name for the site being Matakupaat, meaning ‘place of the platypus’ is for me is also a great name, both ‘Swan Hill’ and Matakupaat being full of romantic imaginings.
The first river punt across the Murray River began in 1846, which effectively established the town, being the only river crossing for miles – and for years.The importance of this river junction site in the agricultural and mercantile development of the town was furthered with the establishment of a Post Office in 1849, and even more so in 1853 when Francis Cadell brought his paddle-steamer, the ‘Lady Augusta’, to Swan Hill, marking the beginning of the highly prosperous, popular, and also highly romantic, paddle-steam business and heritage of Swan Hill in the late nineteenth-century.

In the old section of the current town, along the banks of the Murray River, there are many of the old buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century that have been either maintained and/or restored, verifying the prosperity of Swan Hill. One street, right on the Murray River, where one can still take a paddle-steamer up and down the river, has been made to replicate the old town with all its late-nineteenth-century charm.

To my delight and surprise this also included an old Penny Arcade.

This Penny Arcade is in the rear of one of the old buildings, the front of which is more like and old warehouse and stables, and now is a conventional tourists shop. The Penny Arcade, however, is far from conventional; it is one of the few remaining such places in the country. It is not like a real old Penny Arcade, yet it has a number of old games and Peepshows dating from the early years of the twentieth-century. I remember from my childhood some of these old machines, the precursors to some of today’s digital games, in old Luna Park and other old ‘amusement’ halls and piers in Sydney.

The Peepshows were extremely important in the development of the motion pictures, marking the beginning of mass and popular viewing of ‘moving pictures’. In this case, however, the viewing was completely solo with one, after putting in the right amount of pennies, watched the moving images through a viewer – the viewer being more in the role of kind of individual voyeur rather than a member of an audience. To add to the enjoyment of this experience, in a glimpse of how another early generation entertained themselves, we discovered in a small park right outside, next to the building that contained the Penny Arcade, another old fashioned game that we certainly played as children – ‘Hop-Scotch’.

We travelled down the Murray Valley Highway to the next major town, Echuca, which also enjoyed the paddle-steamer trade, and was also one of the major financial, agricultural and mercantile town in the region (and still is). Like Swan Hill, Echuca is situated near the junction of rivers, in this case – the Murray, the Goulburn and Campaspe Rivers. The site was originally called Hopwood’s Crossing, due to a rather flamboyant and colourful ex-convict, Harry Hopwood who in 1850 began operating a punt across the rivers. It steadily rose to prosperity due to the position of the Echuca Wharf, which being only 200kms (131 miles) away was the closest inland port to Melbourne. The name of the small town was changed to the aboriginal word Echuca in 1855; the indigenous meaning of Echuca is ‘the meeting of the waters’, highly appropriate as the junction of the three rivers.

To be honest, however, we really didn’t spend too much time in Echuca, being more concerned in finding a cafe that was opened for some lunch and coffee. We did find a wonderful cafe near the centre of the now rather large town – and it was a delight. The chatty Italian owner noticed I was quite taken with the sign about drinking coffee on the wall. He told us the reclining female figure, a waitress, was his wife – and when we saw her – well – we all laughed and agreed re the striking and amusing likeness.

We continued on our way, still awed by the brutal majesty of the Australian countryside. Suddenly, the rear right window of our old black Holden Astra snapped down and couldn’t be raised again – effectively ending the use of the much needed air-conditioning – it was now the middle of the day and was extremely hot – and bright. The decision was made to make it to Shepparton and there seek a Holden dealer/repairer in the hope that they would be able to fix it. We did find one and a patch-up job was quickly done by the friendly staff with the window was raised and fixed with duck-tape. It would do for the time being – the main thing was that we once again could have air-conditioning in the car. Before the car was fixed, however, I noticed something as we pulled into the Holden lot that was directly across the road. It was a giant figure of a man, face, torso and arms, waving a flag. I was intrigued. It was certainly within the realms of the other ‘giant’ objects scattered around the country, but didn’t have a name – so a gave it one – the rather unimaginative and lengthy ‘Giant Man Waving a Car Racing Flag with a rather Anxious Face’. I’m sure he was intended to advertise whatever the company it was that he fronted – tractors and other agricultural machines – but he was definitely more associated with car racing; you be the judge.

From Shepparton we drove continually and without incident to the state border towns of Albury-Wodonga. Also situated on the Murray River, Albury sits on the New South Wales side and Wodonga on the Victoria side. It had been many many years since I had been to this part of the world; childhood memories of holiday excursions of this and other places in this region, my mother having a particular fascination with ‘Historical Sights’ and both our parents having a passion for Australian History and determined to show us the actual places no matter how significant or insignificant, and no matter how far – we covered quite a lot of places and ‘Historical Sites’ on these family holidays for which I am eternally grateful. Part of this Xmas holiday involved re-visiting some of these place and ‘Historical Sites’ -as will be illustrated and discussed in later entries to this travel journey. In the meantime, it was now early evening as we drove to our host and hostess’ home, a wonderful single story three bedroom house about twenty minutes outside the town, snuggling and nestling in the hills that overlook Wodonga.

I already knew due the number of guest that I would be sleeping in our host’s caravan. which was also something I had never done. It was fantastic – quiet spacious, fully equipped with all the mod-cons, with one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in!!! I am now completely won over and hooked by the notion of touring Australia with either a caravan or Winnebago, just as our wonderful and generous hosts have done numerous times – with stories ranging from the amazing to the not-so-amazing. Hilarious! More will be revealed in later entries – but for the time being this city-boy learnt two extraordinary things from the genuine, unpretentious, wonderful and sometimes downright delightfully shocking and direct country people I met on this trip. Both these things involved death and murder; the first being associated with a horse, and the second with Rhubarb juice. Here’s a challenge for you -what is the best way of murdering someone using a horse? Or – which part of the human body do you inject with Rhubarb juice to procure a blameless death? Thee answer to these mysteries will be revealed later.

Upon arrival and after settling in, and before for a terrific family dinner with our hosts, I grabbed my Sony camera and went snapping of the local immediate environment. The following pictures are from then, and mark the end of this first entry to Tony’s Tours: Xmas 2015.